Social media platforms and their effects on communication

¶ … Social Media in Modern Business

The Emergence of New Communications Media

The monumental historical significance and moral triumph of the election of Barack Obama as the first black American president may have obscured a wider appreciation of another potentially tremendously significant transition in American social culture. Specifically, the winning presidential campaign put together by the Democratic ticket revolutionized political campaigning by virtue of its reliance on the latest media such as Facebook and Twitter.

Already, many media analysts and social observers suggest that these new forms of communications media have begun to reshape the way Americans communicate (Johnson, 2009; Welch & Welch, 2009). Initially, the primary use of Facebook and Twitter were for informal social connections and entertainment. However, it is quickly becoming apparent that there is tremendous potential for business and other administrative applications. In that regard, the fact that the college student community is the demographic segment that has most readily taken to using Facebook and Twitter makes those media natural resources for university applications.

Specific Applications for Universities and other Academic Institutions

One of the principal advantages of these new media is that they provide a new form of communications that include some of the benefits of what is essentially a full-time, real-time link between individuals and among groups of individuals but without the social obligations and potential conflicts posed by similar uses of telephones (Johnson, 2009). Twitter in particular allows a constant "open connection" that is conducive to immediate responses when possible and appropriate but which is more flexible in terms of the obligation to respond to messages when it is not possible or not appropriate.

In the context of university applications, this means that professors can update assignments and students can contact fellow students, teaching assistants, and even their professors in a manner that is convenient, immediate, and much less intrusive than traditional phone calls. That is primarily because "tweets" may be answered immediately upon receipt or not, depending on the circumstances of the message recipient. Needless to say, there are countless imaginable situations where phone calls between individuals and (especially) among larger groups such as classes would be impractical for which "tweets" fill the role perfectly (Welch & Welch).